


put your weapons down

by owlinaminor



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Song Lyrics, Songfic, season 3b speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1256356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mix for the lost girl and the one-handed pirate who saved each other (and the story of how they did it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	put your weapons down

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, you read the summary correctly. This fic is only half of the "put your weapons down" project -- the other half is a fanmix, which can be found here: http://8tracks.com/owlinaminor/put-your-weapons-down
> 
> Also, I've been posting some of these drabbles on Tumblr as I write them. The master post for them is here: http://bangthecatatonicpiano.tumblr.com/post/78280819998/put-your-weapons-down-a-mix-for-the-lost-girl-and (This was written as part of CS Serenade Month on Tumblr, which is now over, since it's March 1st, but, you know, close enough.)
> 
> So, anyway, I'd just like to say that I've really enjoyed writing this fic. I also gave myself a lot of CS feels. But, you know, you win some, you lose some. I hope you enjoy reading this fic (and listening to the mix) as much as I enjoyed writing it! :)

**i. carousel (vanessa carlton)**

_it’s in the music, beauty stands before me,  
love comes back around again, it’s a carousel my friends_

She stands at her door.

The music is switched off – idle thumping that filled in the cracks and crevices of her mind now reduced to only a whisper.  Without it, she is floundering, too unsure with no weapons to defend herself against the inevitable heartbreak.

She is so scared – she has always been scared (and perhaps that is the problem.)  She is scared of the foster parents who claimed to love her but discarded her when she turned out to be too old or too disobedient, scared of the man who gave her such hope only to knock her down right onto the pavement, scared of the faceless parade of one-night stands whose hearts she can never know, scared of the son who will one day grow up and leave her behind.  She is scared of being broken.

After all, she’s been broken so many times before – what else does she know?

So she built her walls and she hid knives in her high-heeled boots and she locked herself in a prison of steel and despair.  She lost belief – in fairytales, in love, in herself.

And yet, this pounding at the door has left a crack in her wall – anything could get in, and she has defenses but they suddenly seem so weak, so useless.  She doesn’t know what’s on the other side of that door, but she is about to find out, and she doesn’t know why but her heart is thumping much too fast (as though readying itself for a race.)  Her whole life, she’s been on a carousel – love and pain, love and pain, love and pain, each round longer than the next.  She thought her ride was over, but the pounding on the door makes her want to believe that it’s not.

She unlocks the door, twists the knob – anything could get in, but, oh, _anything_ could get in.

The door opens, and her heart leaps.

“ _Swan_.  At last.”

-~-

**ii. silhouette (owl city)**

_the more I try to move on, the more I feel alone,  
so I watch the summer stars to lead me home_

She left him, chained up on the top of a beanstalk.

He can’t blame her for it, really.  She doesn’t trust him, and why should she?  He’s a pirate (one-handed pirate with a drinking problem, someone will call him later, and he won’t try to deny it), and he works only for himself – for his vengeance.  Maybe he looks into her eyes and finds a fellow lost soul, chained to the bars of her skull, but that’s all the more reason to leave him behind – he knows too much, too quickly.  But so does she – it’s almost surprising that she was the one to run, and not him.

And yet he sits on the Giant’s dirt floor, cold as snow beneath his tired feet, and he wishes she’d stayed.

There is something about her: Emma Swan, the woman with the eyes of a lost girl, the woman who wasn’t afraid to chain him up and demand answers, the woman who could tell when he was lying.  (Not even Milah could tell when he was lying, not all of the time.)  When he stepped too close to her, it was as though he’d stepped into the ray of a small star – dangerous and burning, but so warm, so _bright_.  Emma Swan.  Even her name sounds like magic.

He’s met attractive women before, certainly – met them in bars and in brothels, in ships’ holds and prison cells – but none like her.  Milah was his everything ( _is_ his everything, still is, even now) and her grip on his heart couldn’t be released, no matter how many nights he spent in the arms of strangers, how many bottles he shattered at the foot of his bed – but he spent a day scaling a beanstalk with a woman who is not afraid, and he didn’t think of Milah for several hours.

Emma Swan chained him here, left him alone because she doesn’t trust him, and – something in that thought makes him so angry, more than anything has since the Crocodile slaughtered his wife.  He is a pirate, and he only wants revenge, but – he also wants Emma Swan to trust him.  The thought forms slowly – comes together one letter at a time, rolls over several times in his mind before he quite believes it – but it settles nonetheless.

Hours of sitting on the Giant’s floor, and he makes a decision: vengeance first, and then he will find the woman with sunshine in her hair.  Perhaps she can help him to not be quite so lonely.

When his time is up, he climbs down the beanstalk slowly, a dark silhouette against the backdrop of not-quite-morning stars.

(And he _will_ find her.  He will always find her.)

-~-

**iii. falling slowly (once – the musical)**

_take this sinking boat and point it out,  
we’ve still got time_

Their first night in Neverland, she can’t sleep.

Her parents, Regina, and even Gold are dozing in the stern of the boat, but every time she closes her eyes she only sees Henry’s face, so she eventually gives up.  She wanders to the prow, where he is standing at the helm, quiet and patient, a lone sentinel beneath the vast expanse of stars.

She joins him – stands beside the helm but with a couple of feet between their shadows, careful not to move closer.  He glances at her for a moment before returning his gaze to the sea ahead and the sky above.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks her.

She shrugs.

“Too worried about your boy?”

She doesn’t look at him – instead, she looks at the moon, full and round with barely-visible craters which, with just enough luck and imagination, could form a face.  He almost starts to repeat his words, when:

“Have you ever had children?” she asks him.

He shakes his head.  “Can you imagine _me_ as a father?”  It’s meant as a joke, but she hears the self-deprecation, the belief that this world is too harsh ( _he_ is too harsh) and too demanding to bring a child into.

“I thought the same,” she says.  “But then Henry came along, and ... I know I’m not much of a mother, but I at least want a chance to try.  You know?”

“Yes.  Yes, I suppose I do.”

And someday, she will ask him to tell her that story – but for now, it’s enough that he listens.  He listens, he doesn’t judge, doesn’t pry.  It’s comforting – he’s the mast on a shaking ship and if she holds on, she won’t be thrown to pieces.  She looks up at him.

She looks up at him, and there is so much pain in her eyes: loss, anger, loneliness.  Pain – but also determination.  He knows that she will find her son the same way he knows that the sea is vast and the sun shines, because she is strong, stronger than she realizes.  He remembers her falling into the hungry ocean, risking her life to force a compromise – remembers her besting a giant – remembers her granting him mercy.  What he feels isn’t admiration, and it isn’t desire, but it’s something in between the two.  Something like falling.

The ship sails straight and true, clear skies ahead and bright stars above.

(If they fall, they fall together.)

-~-

**iv. rhythm of love (plain white t’s)**

_she rises up like the tide,  
the moment her lips meet mine_

It becomes a thing of normality for her to kiss him.

There was a time when she haunted him every night (her smile, her frown, the soft press of her lips against his just as she started to give in.)  There was a time when he remembered her a thousand different ways, kept her in his mind because she could not be found anywhere else.  There was a time when he would have given anything, _anything_ just to see her again, let alone hold her close and taste her breath as she kisses him, slow and sweet and irresistible.

And now, she kisses him every day – ten times, twenty times, maybe even a hundred times.  He will wake her up with a tentative whisper in her ear, or hand her a thermos of coffee as she charges out the door, or say something to make her laugh, or trail his fingers along her spine, or murmur that he loves her when he thought she was asleep already, or any other one of a thousand little things that have become normal, routine, unbelievable.  Will he ever get used to this perfect life, such a happy ending for a man who deserves so little?  He hopes that he never does.

The rhythm of their love beats so loudly in his chest that he’s surprised she can’t hear it.  It taps to the melody of a million everyday moments, hot chocolate and sunflowers and the footsteps of a dance so hard to excel at but so easy to enjoy.

Sometmes, when nobody else is around, he grins so broadly and hums something pretty, because he knows that she is going to come home and kiss him but he still can’t quite believe it’s real.

(And one night, he lies awake, watching her in the moonlight, her hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm.  She blinks slowly, looks up at him – eyes wide, lips bright red from kissing, and he has never seen anything more beautiful – and asks what he’s thinking about.  He tells her, if they only had tonight, it would still be enough.  And she rolls her eyes, calls him an idiot – of course it would be enough, but they have _more_ than tonight, they have forever, so would he please just go to sleep.  And he smiles, and he kisses her, and he falls asleep still smiling.)

**-~-**

**v. begin again (taylor swift // cover by the piano guys ft. megan nicole & alex goot)**

_but on a Wednesday, in a cafe, I watch it begin again_

They stop at a cafe at six o’clock in the morning.

She’s been driving for hours; coffee is not only desired – it’s necessary.  So she nudges him to get up (not to wake up, he hasn’t slept any more than she has, instead spending his time watching her watching the interstate – she isn’t sure how she feels about that) and drags him into the tiny shop, commands him to buy her espresso and a chocolate doughnut while she goes to the bathroom.

After a couple of minutes, she emerges to find him struggling with the coffee machine, cursing at it as though it’s some kind of unfamiliar sea monster on a treacherous voyage.  He’s so out of place, with his accent and his hook and his long, leather coat – but those are only objects, visible pieces, and she can look through them – she watches him, and only sees how ridiculous his face looks, scrunched-up and petulant.

She spends a moment laughing at his plight before getting the coffee herself.  “Some kind of knight in shining armor _you_ are – can’t even slay a simple coffee machine.”

He mock-glares at her and says, “I never pretended to be a knight, love.  And besides, I _did_ manage to procure the pastry you desired.”

“Oh, I’m sorry – pirate in shining leather and bringer of delicious chocolate breakfast food, is that better?”  She grins, hands the clerk a dollar for the coffee, and heads back outside.

“A bit lengthy for my taste, but it’ll do,” he replies.  He follows her – he always follows her.

And they sit on a rusty, faded bench outside the cafe, watching the sun rise over the interstate.  She warms her hands with her coffee and her heart with his conversation – he tells her what has become of her family in the past year, leaving out the painful and acting out the comedic, imitating David’s startled yell and Snow’s screech with exaggerated voices and wild gestures.  In between bites of doughnut, she returns the favor, joking about her exploits as a mother and police detective, trying to explain so many pop culture references that leave him shaking his head.

He throws his head back laughing, and it’s – it’s strange, she never considered herself funny before now.  Sarcastic, sure.  Pessimistic, occasionally.  But funny?  Never.  Especially not with a man, on a date (and she mentally kicks herself for calling this a date, but – but it could be.)

There is a world of confusion in her head, false and real memories battling for assertion.  But with him, everything seems so simple, so easy.  Every story has a joke, every cloud has a silver lining.  Everything is possible.

(And maybe, when they stand up, she lets her hand brush his, and lingers a little too long – maybe it’s a beginning, with coffee and a bright yellow car and the rising sun.)

-~-

**vi. feel again (onerepublic)**

_I’m feeling better ever since you found me,  
I was alone, and so, but that’s the old me_

He never thought he’d be able to love again after Milah.

It was a constant, during his endless days in Neverland and sleepless nights at sea.  Never again, never again, the waves would whisper to him.  His heart had been torn to shreds, as surely as hers had been crushed to dust.

And then, this shining heroine with golden hair and a sword on her back punches her way into his life, and everything he thought he knew is wrong.  She yanks him up out of three hundred years’ pining and demands that he work, fight, _live_ for something beyond the half-life of revenge for a woman whose face he can’t even remember.  It is not a quick process – it happens slowly enough that he doesn’t notice until the damage is done, and he begs her to kiss him with more desperation than flirtation.

(But can it really be called damage, when it feels as though his heart is mended and the empty spinning in his head has music once more?)

-~-

**vii. pas de cheval (panic! at the disco)**

_it’s the greatest thing that’s yet to have happened, imagine knowing me,  
it’s the greatest thing you’ve ever imagined, but you’ll never know until you’re there_

She thinks about him more than she’d care to admit.

She’s not entirely certain when it started – some time in between scaling a beanstalk and setting sail for Neverland, he wheedled his way into her mind with a wink and a smirk, the twitch of an eyebrow and the word “love.”  Every time she looks at him – every time he opens that sinfully beautiful mouth – every time he looks at her, as though he can see to her very soul and finds it worthy – some part of her is wondering, _what would it be like_?

He promises the best she’s ever had with every gesture, every word, every smile.  The best, better than any one-night stand, better than any half-assed attempt at a relationship, better than Neal.  And she wonders – she dreams of his mouth on hers, imagines what his arms might feel like around her, envisions sweet nothings pressed into the hollow of her neck.  In Neverland, she succumbs to her curiosity (lost girls, thieves, orphans, they always have this burning need to know) and tastes his passion for herself, presses her forehead to his and tells him it’s a one-time thing.  (She lies, of course – how can it ever be a one-time thing, now that her wondering is multiplied a thousand fold?  She can push it down for now, bury her wanting beneath a quest that is so much more important than any one desire, but she can’t hide it forever.)

Even when she forgets, she still remembers in dreams, half-imagined visions of calloused hands cradling her cheeks and bright blue eyes staring straight into her soul.  The wondering and the wanting are dual aches within her, asking _who is he_ and _what would it be like_ in the same breath (not daring to ask the most important question, _is he waiting_ ) – but she always forgets again before she wakes up.

Her memories return, and she thinks it’s funny, in a way – she left and forgot, but a part of him still remained, trapped by her curiosity and half-formed desire.

She looks at him, and he is – he is indeed something special, there’s no other way to put it.  A year of lost time has brought back her need to find out if he is truly as magnificent as he promises (a need all the greater in the face of its delay.)  There is a quest, of course – realms to save, evil to defeat, magic to perform.

But when all this is over, she promises herself that she will take that pirate, and she will see if he can make good on his words.

(She doesn’t doubt that he will, not really.)

-~-

**viii. heaven can wait (we the kings)**

_here’s a song for the nights I drink too much and spill my words_

He has grand plans for the proposal.

The ring is picked out: simple but elegant, a slim gold band with an emerald centerpiece that glimmers in the sun.  He takes it out of his dresser drawer sometimes and runs his finger over it, preparing the perfect words, the perfect gestures, the perfect way to kiss her if (when?) she says yes.  In his mind, they are on the balcony of the palace when he does it – he is wearing his best suit and she a magnificent gown, and the stars are twinkling brightly out of the vast expanse of night (giving their blessing.)  He will take her completely by surprise.  There will be tears on her cheeks when she nods her answer, he will pick her up and swing her around, there will be fireworks.  (For some reason, in his mind, there are always fireworks.)

He takes her completely by surprise – that much is true.

They’re sitting in Granny’s, toasting their most recent victory for the umpteenth time.  He’s never been one to let his rum consume him, but something – something about the euphoria of a battle won or a good drink with good friends or her hand entwined in his beneath the table – has taken the edge off, his mind not quite as sharp as it should be.

Everyone else gets up, moving to dance to the song on the radio, and she tightens her grip on his fingers, silently asking him to stay.  He turns to her.  She is an impossible thing in the soft light of a street lamp shining through the window, her face battered but glowing with the curve of a smile, her eyes shining emerald.  Emerald, so bright and _just for him_.  Just for him, her fingers fit so perfectly into his, and he doesn’t want to wait.

_He doesn’t want to wait._

He pulls her closer and murmurs it into the hollow of her neck: “Emma, marry me.”

She jerks back – too abrupt, too soon, why the hell did he do that, he had _such good plans_ – and stands, but then she’s yanking him up with her – and he scrambles over his own feet as she marches to the door, a force of nature in her high-heeled boots.

The door clangs shut behind them.  She takes a couple of steps back to scan the street, make sure they’re alone before confronting him.

“ _What_ did you say?”

“Emma,” he begins – begins, and realizes he doesn’t know where to go from there, except that if the only word he could say for the rest of his life was her name that would be enough.  Her arms are crossed and she looks so cold, and he has to say something – he _has_ to, or she’ll run away and he can’t lose her.

So he opens his mouth.  He opens his mouth, and the words pour out, like a stream a river a waterfall.  A fucking ocean of wishes and pleas, so many words he’s written for her on long, dark nights and short, sunny days but never gave life before now.

“Emma, Emma, Emma, I bought you a ring.  It’s a beautiful ring.  It’s in the back of my dresser, behind a picture of Milah – it hasn’t been lost in a crack somewhere, which I take as her blessing.  I’ve been planning what I would say, how I would say it, for so long, and I forgot that I can be a sorry arse who drinks a little too much and says things – things he could be sorry for.  Emma.  Emma, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ask you like this, it’s just that – I don’t want to wait.  Every time I look at you, you’re so beautiful and it’s so hard to not tell you.  You’re the savior, not just of realms but of one-handed pirates with drinking problems.  You’re ... You’re everything.  Emma.  Emma, everything.  Tell me you feel the same, at least a little.  Tell me you want ... Tell me I can stay.  Tell me you’ll keep me in your heart.  Tell me there is such a thing as forever.  Tell me, Emma.  Emma.  Emma, Emma, Emma, will you marry me?”

He pauses to take a breath.  She takes two steps forward.  He recovers enough of his judgment to hope she won’t punch him in the face.

“Yes,” she whispers.

(There aren’t fireworks, but it doesn’t matter.)

-~-

**ix. what makes you beautiful (onedirection // instrumental cover by the piano guys)**

_[you don’t know, you don’t know you’re beautiful]_

Of course, he realizes he’s _attractive_.

Any female forced to spend a few minutes with him would know that.  He grins like a viper about to strike, makes exaggerated gestures of chivalry from a bygone era, and waggles his eyebrows in intricate dances of disdain and innuendo.  His cheekbones could cut steel and his eyes could drown a fleet, and he carries himself like the conquering hero returning triumphant.  He flirts so shamelessly, so openly – with the women at the counter and the girl passing on the street, with her mother and her friends and too many others.  He gives away his graces like pennies tossed into a gutter, not knowing what they’re worth.

He realizes he’s attractive, but he doesn’t know that he’s _beautiful._

He doesn’t see his eyes light up when he comes up with a clever prank – or his head thrown back with laughter when Henry tells him a silly joke – or the ruffle in his hair just after he wakes up.  Or that smile – not his devilish smirk, but the smile he saves especially for her, the smile he saves for just after she kisses him.

She wishes she was an artist, sometimes, because she would love to paint him.  It would be such a worthy challenge, to attempt to capture every scar, every wrinkle, every laughter line.  She imagines spending hours sketching detail after detail, watching him from a distance (watching him standing on the prow of his boat, with the wind in his hair and no enemies to hunt) and marveling at his brilliance, like the moon lighting up a dark night.

More often than not, though, she’s glad her drawing skills are so lacking, because she fears (knows) she would never be able to come close.

So instead, she settles for tracing his scars in the darkness, trailing kisses along his spine, thanking every god she can think of for giving him to her.  “You’re beautiful,” she whispers in his ear, and he shakes his head ever so slightly – he doesn’t believe a man broken and patched up and broken again can be beautiful, but she’ll show him.

He’ll believe, someday.

**-~-**

**x. muchacha kiss kiss bang (alex swings oscar sings)**

_[when I look into her eyes, the flames grow higher,  
I know this is a kiss of fire]_

They enjoy the ball in spite of themselves.

He notices her sitting alone on the edge of the ballroom – grabs her hand and pulls her up, ignoring her protests that she isn’t a dancer, she has two left feet, she’ll break his toes in her high heels.  He only laughs – “I can handle it” – and insists that she should at least try it – “just one song, and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”

She’s never been one for dancing, but maybe it’s because she’s never had anyone ask her to dance before, nobody to grin at her and spin her around and pull her into the beat of the music she never realized was buried in her heart.

There are a few narrow misses, but she doesn’t break his toes in her high heels.

And then, after the ball, she touches his hand (almost hesitant, ridiculous like a young girl at her junior prom) and asks him if he’d walk with her to her room (proper like the princess she isn’t.)  They get to the doorway and she pulls him closer – tangles her hands in his hair, anchors her lips to his.

Maybe she’ll be able to pass this off in the morning as leftover ecstasy from dancing and a little too much wine, but maybe she doesn’t want to.  Her room is so dark and he is so warm – his skin is burning, burning for her, like electricity or like lightening – and there is no battle to fight in the morning.

“Gods, Emma,” he gasps as she kisses her way down his chest, “your mouth should be illegal.”

He doesn’t say, _I love you_ , but she hears it all the same.

(And she returns it, by keeping her eyes open when she kisses him and screaming his name and tracing his scars so delicately with her fingertips.)

This, here and now, is a dance – a swing number loud and fiery and _past the point of no return_.

**-~-**

**xi. just one yesterday (fall out boy)**

_anything you say can and will be held against you,  
so only say my name, it will be held against you_

The first time they make love, she calls it fucking.

She boards his ship late one night, pounds on his cabin door like the close clap of thunder.  Her face, when he opens the door (he was awake almost before she knocked) is tinted red, not as though she was crying but as though she was considering it.  He is struck by the insatiable urge to embrace her, let her shut her tired eyes and pretend that everything will be okay, but he knows she would only run away.  He doesn’t wonder why she’s here – he can recognize a homeless heart because he’s been there, known that, so many times before.

(And he _wants_ her, every fiber of his being hums with the wanting and aches for her touch.  Aches, yet holds back, waits for her to make the first move.  He doesn’t dare to hope, not now, not when she can take it all away so easily, like snapping a chord.)

“You won’t tell anyone I was here,” she says, voice low and precise.  He nods – _as you wish._

She searches his eyes and finds what she wants, then surges forward and melts her body to his.  Lightning strikes where their fingers intertwine, where her eager hands pull away his shirt and he lets her in, so pliant beneath her bold desire.  They fall back onto his bed, she sheds her thin T-shirt and – and he _knows_ she’s using him as a distraction, a painkiller, an escape, but he doesn’t mind.

(After all, she’s done so much for him that his body is so little for him to give in return.  He expects it, he won’t be disappointed when she leaves too early in the morning.)

She stays silent, wordless except for sharp breaths that can barely be called cries.  She is determined, so determined to pretend this doesn’t mean anything – she, with him, _this,_ is at the eye of her own personal hurricane.

And yet one word slips through her defenses, even so.  One word, one whisper: his name.

(He will replay this night so many times in his mind when she’s gone, wishing so desperately not to forget, aching for just one yesterday, wondering if he ever had a chance.)

**-~-**

**xii. reminder (mumford & sons)**

_without her I’m lost,  
oh, my love, don’t fade away_

When they decide to go find her, he is the first to volunteer.

“Why?” the others ask him, their eyes wide with shock and heavy with concern.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

True, he isn’t the most suited for the mission.  Snow and Charming are her parents, she’d be more happy to see them; Neil is the father of her child, Henry would choose him; Regina is a powerful sorceress, she’d be able to find her; her friends would be friendly faces in a strange land; almost anyone who lived in Storybrooke during the first curse can more easily navigate the realm without magic than he can.  But they all have other people to live for – a new baby to protect, a father to find, a witch to fight.  Killian has nothing.

A one-handed pirate with a drinking problem is such a meaningless piece on the playing field, a pawn in the world of knights and queens.  He falls asleep every night drunk and seeing red – dreams of Emma and Milah (mostly Emma) – wakes up with tears on his face – doesn’t speak to anyone for days.  On the battlefield, he is merely another swordsman, and in the castle, his opinions are only valued because they believe they owe him.

He is a shadow of his former selves, halfway between Killian Jones, the man who fights evil and Captain Hook, the pirate who shatters things when he’s angry.  And the only person who makes him want to be that good man again is gone.

(Without her, he is a wanderer on a dark path with no stars to guide him and wind howling in his ears, whispering _traitor_ – to what or to whom, he doesn’t know.)

“Isn’t it obvious?” he says, and it is – it’s so obvious, too obvious, painfully obvious – they can see it in his eyes.

(And in a realm of skyscrapers and flashing lights so far away, she wakes up with tears on her face and can’t remember why.)

**-~-**

**xiii. mr. brightside (the killers)**

_it started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this,  
it was only a kiss, it was only a kiss_

Sometimes, too late at night to dare sleeping, he presses his fingers to his lips and imagines he can still taste her breath.

She could have found someone new.  It’s been months, and she is trapped in that world without magic, in a life she cannot know isn’t true.  He imagines that she finds solace in some nameless pair of arms, closes her eyes against some wordless whisper, loses herself in some shapeless lips.  In his mind, he can picture the scene so well: a room, a bed, a light switch flicked off, blankets spilled asunder.  Her shirt slides up, up, up and over her head, exposing the soft, white skin of her stomach, and her head falls back upon the pillow, and a foreign tongue tastes the sweetness of her neck.

He can see it so well, as though he is in the room with them – as though he is the moon peering in through the window, casting a pale, silvery light that the entwining lovers don’t even notice.

And why would they?  She doesn’t remember.

He could pretend that his vision isn’t real – that she will not make love to any man, nameless or otherwise, and miss him in a thousand sleepless nights spent staring up at the unforgiving moon.  He could, but he knows it would only be a falsehood.  Whatever flimsy love she held for him once, as golden and shimmering as it might have been, it was so easily lost and torn and forgotten.

She will find someone new.  She will move on and she will be happy and he will be chained with his fingers to his lips, which is all he deserves.  She could have been his happy ending, but villains don’t get happy endings – none, never, no exceptions.

This loneliness is his destiny, nothing more.

-~-

**xiv. chocolate (snow patrol)**

_goodness knows, I saw it coming, or at least I’ll claim I did,  
but in truth I’m launched forwards_

Her mother asks if she is in love with him, and she doesn’t know what to say.

The two of them are – well, they are – they are – something.  They have both forgotten how to do this, hearts split and battered and scabbed so ugly, they can’t be quite healed.  It’s been so long, but she is learning and so is he – with every kiss in a dark hallway, every entwining of hands beneath the table, every glance late at night – but she doesn’t yet know how to vocalize it.  She doesn’t know how to take the intangible feelings and put them into syllables, words, sentences.

He isn’t her boyfriend.  Boyfriend is too mundane a word, conjures up images of cheap beer and clumsy arms across shoulders – not at all like him.  He could be her lover.  Lover – her tongue stumbles over the word, can’t quite pronounce the word that summons feelings, intense feelings, deep feelings that she doesn’t know how to admit.  He is her partner.  Partner doesn’t quite encompass him, though – they ma.ke a great team, coming up with plans and shielding each other’s backs, but partner doesn’t show the need, the desire that burns in her veins every time he looks at her.

When did he come to mean so much to her?  When did she begin to feel as though she couldn’t live without him?  What happened?  How did it happen so fast?

Sometimes, she feels like a stone on a catapult, flying through the air with no inkling of when she might land.  He smiled at her on a beanstalk and she was launched – and now every word, every touch, little thing he does only serves to speed up her flight.

And now, here she is, standing in front of her mother (her mother, with the kindest smile and the chin that’s pointed just like hers) and struggling to find an answer.  She can’t even hope to sum up everything – that he is her partner, her friend, her lover – that he believes in her – that she sees home in the curve of his grin.

Finally, what comes out is: “Is it really that obvious?”

Her mother laughs.  “You can try to hide your feelings all you want, but they’ll come out eventually, no matter what.”

She’s made mistakes before.  Shut herself down after Neal, took too long to open up to Henry.  But with this man – this man who has fought so hard for her – she will not be that scared girl she once was.  She will take baby steps, in this not-quite-definable relationship of theirs, but they will be steps nonetheless.

And the next morning when he hands her a mug of hot chocolate, she grabs his hand, holds him in place.  Holds him in place, kisses his knuckles, and whispers three little words into his open palm.

**-~-**

**xv. kill (jimmy eat world)**

_so go on, love, leave while there’s still hope for escape,  
gotta take what you can these days_

The purple fog is rolling in, vast and dark, and he doesn’t want her to go.

She says goodbye to her family first: her mother, large, doe eyes barely concealing tears; her father, channeling his melancholy into the arms that hold her too tightly; the father of her child, despair so plain in his face as he silently begs her to take good care of their son.  And then, she stands before him.

“Not a day will go by that I don’t think of you,” he says.

He can picture it now – endless days without her stretching into weeks, months, years of empty rooms, shattered bottles, a cold side of the bed.  He will pray for release (pray to the gods of sex and lost memory, because what other gods does he know?) but it will not come – he knows, he’s done this all before.  Lost Liam, found Milah.  Lost Milah, found Emma.  Lost Emma ... And he is too broken, heart too ugly and misshapen for another chance.

“Not a day will go by that I don’t think of you,” he says, and she says, “Good.”

It’s always been his fatal flaw: he doesn’t know how to let anything (anyone) go.  What he loves, he keeps – leaves his wounds open too long, lets them fester and bleed.  She will be no different – and when she looks at him as though she can see his very soul (she knows what he’s thinking, she always knows) and accepts his heart’s lonely call – if she had stayed, perhaps he could have – and that hope lost is worse than anything else.  She builds him up, and then she will leave and he will break.  And she won’t even remember him and he won’t be able to walk away.

And she said, “Good.”

As she gets in her car, his arms ache to hold her.  He wants to kiss her again – one last time, before she disappears forever.  But the few steps are a mile to his weary feet, and if her gaze lingers too long on him, he tells himself not to notice.

(Will there be hope?  No, of course not.  He doesn’t deserve it.)

**-~-**

**xvi. take this longing (leonard cohen)**

_let me see your beauty broken down,  
like you would do for one you love_

The problem is that she is beautiful, even when she is crying.

He finds her on the balcony (the same balcony that saw her kiss him only that morning, or perhaps decades ago) staring into the vast expanse of starlight as though it holds all the answers.  Her golden hair is tangled, loose and windblown and stained with blood, and there is a sheen of wetness upon her cheeks that he almost didn’t recognize at first because Emma Swan does not cry – or if she does, she does not show it.

They lost Neal that morning – Neal, Baelfire, so much more than the son of Rumplestiltskin and just enough to be Henry’s father – gave his life for his family and left his once-lover on this balcony with not even a moon for comfort.

She lost Neal, and just for this moment – for this night, where she thinks nobody can see her – she has been reduced to a sliver of her former self, the lost girl she was when she stole that yellow car and forgot to check the backseat, and Killian hates to see her broken.

To him, she has always been this determined, unbreakable goddess, who never let anything stop her or bring her down, but here she is, defying every well-intentioned expectation.  Here she is, closing her eyes and slipping down to sit on the hard stones and pressing her face up against the balcony railing.  She looks so cold and so tiny and so alone, a speck so tiny compared to the endless sea of stars, and he is compelled to encircle her in his arms and whisper to her that everything will be okay.

(But everything will not be okay, because they won this battle but Henry does not have a father, and pirates are not equipped for comfort in times of sorrow.)

The starlight echoes off her face – her face, lined and cracked, eyes red-rimmed and beauty broken down and Killian should not be watching this but he cannot bring himself to leave.  Even now, she is still so beautiful.

“Emma,” he whispers.  (The word chokes in his throat, so faint he can barely hear it.  More a thought than a whisper, really.  More a whisper than a cry.)

And he leaves – of course he leaves, after a precious few moments, because he loves her but he respects her and this is not for him – her tears, her sorrow, her silent vigil beneath the stars are all for a man gone too soon.

And he wonders if Neal is watching her, if Neal is crying, too.  And he wishes (so selfishly, so jealously, he wishes) that he had been the one to die today – that he had been the one to earn her love with his last breath.

-~-

**xvii. weapons (hudson taylor)**

_if only you could see it from my own two eyes,  
you could see the view from the other side_

They don’t believe they deserve each other.

She is too brilliant for him, he thinks, watching her hair glint in the sunlight as she laughs with her son.  She races through realms, burning back the black curses and building foundations of truth in their places.  She is a princess, not only by birth but by deed – she slays dragons and stands up to sorcerers and never loses hope.  She is the Savior, and he is only a one-handed pirate with a drinking problem.  He can fight for her and die for her, he can speak of devotion and good form, but in the end, she is flying among the stars and he can barely hope to reach her fiery trail.

He is too compassionate for her, she thinks, watching his smile stretch from his lips all the way up to his eyes as he steers his ship.  He crosses worlds for her, gives up revenge for her, pledges his life to her.  He is not a pirate (not beneath the skin) but a prince out of legend, with his elegant bows and his “As you wish.”  He is a knight in leather armor with a ship for a horse, and she is only a lost girl who doesn’t know where she belongs.  She can fight for him and die for him, she can scream at anyone who dares to doubt his devotion, but in the end, he is cresting the highest waves and she can barely dream of accomplishing anything worth his smile.

And so she kisses him as though she can’t quite believe he’s real, and he holds on to her as though she’s the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.  They drop their shields in the dead of night, put down their weapons of shame and fury and try to show each other through a thousand touches and glances and heartbeats, _yes, yes, you are everything to me._

They don’t believe they deserve each other, which is precisely why they do.

-~-

**xviii. prodigal (onerepublic)**

_and I’ll take everything from you,  
but you’ll take anything, won’t you?_

After the battle, she avoids him for a week.

She kissed him.  Rescued him.  Saved him from the curse with the power of true love.  That’s the best confession a person can give.  But ... Now what?  Aren’t they supposed to get married and have lots of babies and live happily ever after?  That’s how all of the fairytales end.

But Emma isn’t a typical fairytale princess, and she doesn’t know how to do happily ever after.  She’s had a home behind her high, concrete walls for so long, she isn’t sure if she can break them down.  She can so easily see herself deciding to love him now, but panicking a week, a month, a year from now and packing her bags in the middle of the night.  Can she love him the way he deserves?  No, of course she can’t – and yet for some unbelievable reason, he loves her, so she has to make a decision.  She gives herself a day, which quickly turns into a week – doesn’t speak to him in the hallways, leaves rooms when he arrives, gives herself tasks far away from him.

Of course, she’s still no closer to a decision when he knocks on her door one evening.

She almost doesn’t let him in, but he’s becoming harder and harder to avoid, and – and she’s done running.  So, she opens the door, dares to look him in the eyes for a moment as he steps in slowly, not quite sure he belongs.

“Swan, why have you been avoiding me?” he asks.  (And it hurts, a quiet stab in the back she should’ve expected, that he isn’t calling her Emma.)

She sighs.  “I don’t know.”

“But ... You kissed me.”  He speaks slowly, carefully, stating the facts and trying to mask the desperation in his eyes – trying because she sees, they can always read each other so clearly and this is no exception.

“You kissed me, and broke my curse.  And yet, you’ve been avoiding me.  Why?”

Maybe this would be easier if he was angry, accusing.  Because he’s so clearly setting himself up for disappointment – this man who has been so broken and so alone – and she so badly wants to just say fuck it all, grab him and kiss him senseless.

But she knows how that would end, so instead, she says, “I’ll take everything from you.  I’m horrible at relationships – I’ll make one wrong move, and run away.  You don’t want that.  You ...”  And she hesitates, not meeting his gaze, before whispering, “You deserve better.”

“I’m no better at this than you are, love.”  She glances up to find he’s taken a step closer.  “I mean, it’s been centuries, since ... Since I had a proper relationship.  And I’d be willing to take things slowly, if you like.  Just, please, give me something.  Anything.”

The desperation slips out – _something, anything_ – and she – she only wants him to be happy.  (Can he be happy with her?  Can anyone?)

“Why did you come back for me?” she asks, letting him hear the barely-hidden question – _why do you love me?_

“Because, Emma Swan, you are so beautiful,” he says simply.  He reaches for her – cradles her face in his hands and tilts it up so that her eyes meet his – she lets him.

“Beautiful – and I don’t mean in a physical sense, although that’s true.  You are brave and noble, more than I could ever hope to be, and you – you make me want to be a better person.  Everything is brighter when you’re around.”

And she realizes that no matter how far she runs away, he will always wait for her to return.

Someday, she will find the words to tell him that she feels the same, but for now, she settles for kissing him, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her forehead to his and whispering, “Thank you.”

(This is decidedly not a one-time thing.)

-~-

**xix. hold (superchick)**

_I need, need a hand to hold,_   
_hold me from the edge, the edge I’m sliding off,_   
_hold onto me_

There are nights when he wakes up crying Milah’s name.

Revenge was his world for so long – he pictured her face (eyes closing for the last time as she gave a small shudder and collapsed in on herself) every other heartbeat so as not to forget.  The rage was a cold fire in his chest that he kept burning with words of ice, _hate_ and _punishment_ and _never forgive._   He whispered the crocodile’s name under his breath as he pounded his fist into stone tables and swallowed pints of hard liquor.  That beast had taken Milah’s heart, but he might as well have taken her lover’s – ripped it out, torn it apart, and thrown it to the bottom of the ocean, red blood still flowing.

He is better, now.  At least, he tells himself he is better – he does not see her face every waking moment and his vision does not tint red, colors mixing and shifting into each other, when he loses control.  But there are still days when he sees Rumplestiltskin on the street and struggles not to knock the man down, mornings when he wakes disoriented to gold hair on the pillow and wishes it was auburn, nights when he dreams of the breath fading from Milah’s chest.  Revenge is a hard specter to drive out.

When he wakes, goosebumps along his arms and cold sweat sticking to his skin, she wakes with him.  She looks at him through sleepy, half-lidded eyes – but she does not yawn, and she does not complain.  She only reaches for him – wraps her arms around his waist and settles her hand on his too-rapidly beating heart.

They will not talk about this in the morning, they never do – but that does not erase this moment, in the darkness of a too-long night, her hand on his heart and his cool forehead pressed to her warm shoulder.  She makes him want to be better, and he repeats it like a prayer – _better, better, better_ – to pull him back from the ledge, to remember that vengeance is such a small satisfaction compared to the life she has built with him – is building with him – will build with him.

And so she holds him, holds him until he can see the dawn breaking.

-~-

**xx. butterfly (jason mraz)**

_just take a moment, imagine it, that I’m dancing with you,_   
_I’m your pole, and all you’re wearing is your shoes,_   
_you’ve got soul, you know what to do to turn me on until I write a song about you_

On their one-year anniversary, they clear the apartment.                    

Henry is staying with Regina and Snow and David have long since moved into their own place, so nobody is going to bother them.  They push furniture out of the way, sweep the floor of anything that could be tripped over, turn the lights down low, and crank up the music.

She has never been much of a dancer – not clumsy, just never bothered to learn, never saw the point – but he doesn’t mind.  He only wants to press her closer _,_ fit the curves of her body into his, wrap his arms around her and never let go.  She moves with him – not arguing, not protesting, because it's their anniversary and she never quite believed she could last this far until now.

Lights off, music on, it is so easy to fall into bed.  Easy, like breathing, for her to slide open his shirt and run her lips over his chest.  Like breathing, perfectly normal, for him to entangle his fingers in her hair and pull it to the side to taste her neck.  Perfectly normal, like breathing, so easy.

They’ve done this – what, a hundred times?  Maybe a hundred, maybe ninety-nine, maybe forever.  It doesn’t matter.  Doesn’t matter, because it will never be enough – she will never tire of the way he moves inside her and he will never tire of his name on her lips.

It occurs to her, head fallen back against the pillow as he teases his delicate fingers up her thighs, that she is the luckiest woman alive.  She has it all – she has a family, a home, him – and he makes her feel better than any one person should be allowed – and he whispers her name like a prayer – and he will not leave in the morning.

And he does not leave in the morning.  He makes her breakfast, only some toast and hot chocolate but it is more than she ever deserved.  When she kisses him, his smile tastes of cinnamon.

(In his mind, he writes her a thousand songs, and all of them are beautiful.)

-~-

**xxi. hopeless wanderer (mumford & sons)**

_don’t hold a glass over the flame, don’t let your heart grow cold,  
I will call you by name, I will share your road_

The campfire is cold, reduced to embers just barely pricking the heavy blanket of night.

She sits next to him, takes care not to look at him – instead, she focuses on the forest beyond, listening attentively for potential intruders she knows aren’t coming.  He sits very still, an animal on the verge of becoming a target, and tries not to feel every molecule in the cushion of air between their legs.

“Tell me a story,” she says.  Her voice is quiet, but the forest is silent, so it resonates through the trees, up into the stars.

So, he tells her of a boy named Killian Jones, lost and alone on the streets with only a brother barely his senior to guide him.  He tells her of a two-man team who joined the Navy because the food was free and stayed because they dreamed of saving empires and slaying dragons.  He tells her of a lieutenant who turned his coat and painted his ship black, heart hardened by his king’s betrayal.

And he tells her of a woman not quite like any other.  “Her name was Milah,” he begins, and she hears the reverence, the pain in that past tense.  His voice breaks when he describes how the Crocodile ripped out her heart, and her hand inches closer to his, almost of its own accord.

There is silence, when he finishes his story.  Silence, except for a faint breeze and the distant rolling of ocean waves.

“You knew him as Baelfire, but I knew him as Neal,” she says, her voice quiet and her face blank.  Her story has always been that of a lost girl – always searching for love, home, family, and finding it for a brief moment only to have it yanked away (and building walls, stockpiling weapons to prevent any future tearing of red blood cells.)  She tells him of foster homes and surrogate families wanted and unwanted, of the adrenaline rush of breaking and entering, of the love cradled in a stolen car.  “He left me alone,” she finishes, and he hears the pain, the bitterness in that last word.

There is no faux catharsis in their eyes tonight – no empty apologies, no fruitless attempts at sympathy.  The boy turned soldier turned pirate and the girl turned thief turned savior – they understand each other with unnerving ease.  Their roads are not unalike in their twists and turns, hills and valleys (and it can only be so long before they cross.)

They speak of life and death, friends and missions, love found and lost.  Their words hold them tightly (a net of whisper and melody) until the campfire is reduced to smoke and the birds sing.

“Thank you, Killian.”  It’s been so long since anyone has used his name like that – simply, honestly, with respect – and those three syllables in time with the rising and falling of her throat – they fill his heart in a way he can’t quite explain.

“No, thank _you_ , Emma.”  She is just another lost girl on this island, but if he keeps saying her name like that – as though it’s precious, a goddess or a star – she could almost fancy herself a hero.

-~-

**xxii. gold (once)**

_and if a door be closed, then a road for home start building,  
and tear your curtains down, for sunlight is like gold_

The sunlight beams down upon her armor, reflecting golden and gleaming off of her heart.

Laughter echoes in her ears – the Wicked Witch, cackling and cackling like a demon from the fiery pits of Hades, once human but now something beyond horrible, something that causes pain for fun – and bounces back somewhere in the depths of her skull, mixing with the banging of her heart in her chest and the words, _who are you protecting?_

This is a battlefield, plain and simple.  This is chaos, this is cacophony, this is swords clanging and shouts ringing out and the dark, rusty red of blood.  This is the world that Emma Swan (Emma Swan, savior of realms and breaker of curses) was born into, and she can’t help but think, in a rare moment of laughable clarity, that it would be so fitting if this was the world that she fell out of.

(But then she pictures his face, and – no, she can’t think like that, she can’t give up, that _is not who she is_.  _Emma Swan, who are you protecting?_ )

The Wicked Witch is all shades of green and bloodthirsty grins, and it would be such a pleasure to slam her back with a right hook to the jaw, but this fight is not so easy.  Emma dodges curses with the blade of her sword and spins vines of magic out of thin air, whips them around her opponent’s neck and screams when they shatter, too quickly created and not strong enough.

“Look at you, the little princess all grown up,” the witch taunts.  “Look at how hard you fight to save your family.  Too bad they’re already doomed.”

Emma glares at her, throws a spear of energy right at her smug face, but it is so easily deflected and the witch isn’t even breaking a sweat, like the heroine of an action movie – comes out of battle with her make-up barely smudged.

“Oh, and your pirate,” she adds, almost as an afterthought, “he fought so hard for you.  Such a shame I had to curse him, really.”

And in the space between heartbeats, the god carrying Emma’s world lets his burden slip.

“You _what_?”

“Cursed him, just a few minutes ago.  Didn’t you know?  Oh, I’m so sorry you had to find out like this, really I am.”

_Emma Swan, who are you protecting?_

She sees his face in her mind – he’s smirking, and then he’s saying something she can’t quite catch, and then laughing at himself, and then looking at her as though she’s his entire universe and she could lose herself in the deep blue of his eyes and she wants to kiss that smile and she isn’t sure when she became so attached to a one-handed pirate with a drinking problem but there he is with her heart in his hand and –

He cannot be cursed.  He cannot be lost to her.  It’s not allowed.

And so she thinks of him – pictures his smile and his frown, hears his voice (like velvet, deep and rich and warm) – closes her eyes and lets her emotions burst through her skin.  She is sunlight, she is gold, she is not going to let anyone hurt him.

_Killian Jones, that’s who I’m protecting.  I’m protecting my parents, and I’m protecting Henry, and I’m protecting him.  His name is Killian and he is a good man and I love him._

When Emma opens her eyes, the witch is flat on her back, face pale and eyes cold.

And Emma runs – doesn’t even wait a second before sprinting across the battlefield, her hair streaming out behind her like a banner.  He tried true love’s kiss on her once and it failed, but she will not fail, not this time.

Not for him.

-~-

**xxiii. you’ve got the love (florence & the machine)**

_sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air,  
but I know I can count on you_

There are times she almost wishes she could give up.

Right now, for example – she stands on the balcony of the castle, watching the faint red of a sun just peeking its tired head above the horizon.  It’s morning of the day she will face the Wicked Witch, and she has long since given up on sleeping.  (Slumber?  Dreams?  An escape from the real world?  Even for a few hours, that would be too easy.)

She runs her fingers along the cold blade of her sword, wondering if it will be sharp enough to slice the woman who threatens her family into pieces, wondering which person the witch will try to hurt her with, wondering if this endless battle will ever be over.  And she sighs, and she rests her head in a cradle of her arms crossed on the balcony railing, and she doesn’t hear him come up behind her until he speaks.

“Swan?  Are you alright?”

Of course it’s him – a pirate and a lost girl are too much alike, and they have the same hiding places.

“Do you think I can do it?” she asks him, head still buried in her arms because she can’t bring herself to see the concern on his face.

“Yes,” he answers without hesitation.  “You are strong and brave and powerful, Emma Swan – don’t ever forget that.  You can defeat the witch, and you can defend the realms, and you can save your family, because you can do anything you put your mind to.”

He speaks as though merely stating facts, reinstating the obvious that anyone should know.  She glances at him – the sun is rising now, pulling away the shadows and casting the land below in brilliance.  The sun is rising and it is so beautiful, but he is watching her.

And – he is watching _her_.

She picks her head up, and before she can talk herself out of it, she crosses the space between them, leans in, and grants him the softest of kisses.

“For luck,” she says.  “And to thank you, for believing in me.”

And she turns and heads inside, the sword on her back gleaming in the sunlight.

-~-

**xxiv. pain (jimmy eat world)**

_never thought I’d walk away from you,_   
_I did, but it’s a false sense of accomplishment,_   
_every time I quit_

The purple fog is rolling in, vast and dark, and she doesn’t want to go.

She glances back at all of their faces one last time – her parents, hands clasped tightly – Regina, watching Henry and smoothing her face into something less painful – Neal, standing straight with his hands in his pockets – so many others, friends she’s made here (friends, it’s so new to her to have _friends_ and she doesn’t want to forget) – and him.

“Not a day will go by that I don’t think of you,” he said.

And she – she wants so badly to believe him.  She’s been broken, she’s been burned, but with him, she nearly had another chance – because he understands her, looks into her eyes and sees straight into her soul, and that frightens her more than anything but given time ... He cares for her, went back to Neverland for her and risked his life for her and became a good man for her, and she doesn’t want to go, not when this nameless beginning between them could form something tangible.

“Not a day will go by that I won’t think of you,” he said, and she said, “Good.”

But isn’t this safer – for her to leave?  He may say he loves her now, but a week from now?  A month?  A year?  Neal told her he loved her once, but those words were only that – words, easily tainted, easily erased back into the air from whence they came.  After that, she’s walked out so many times, given up too quickly and too often, built her walls and fortified them with everything she could pull from her heart.

It’s so easy to quit.  This time is harden than the others, but he’s only a man, and she doesn’t need him.  She’ll be fine.

(As she crosses the border, the last thing she tastes is salt and rum and something almost burnt – and she sees his face the night she kissed him – and something in her screams, “Wait!” but the engine is running and it’s too late now.  Isn’t it?)

And she said, “Good.”

-~-

**xxv. up with the birds (coldplay)**

_good things are coming our way_

He stands in front of her door.

Plain, white door.  Dusty, golden doorknob.  Faded, green welcome mat.

David had asked how he planned to find her.  An unfamiliar world with no magic, except for the potion he carried and the song in his heart.  It should have been impossible – they had no idea where the portal would lead, and this is a realm of a billion souls, all moving and laughing and shining bright, more numerous than the stars in the sky.

He had thought of all of that, of course.  But he wasn’t worried, because he felt a pull – still feels it, and with her on the other side of that door, it is more prominent than ever.  His heart – red organ, size of a fist, pumping and pumping and pumping – has pulled him towards her.  The potion he carried and the song in his heart is all the magic he needs.

“I will always find her,” he told her parents.  (And he heard them gasp as he leapt into the portal.)

It took days, it took wits, it took determination, but here he is.  That is her door.  It couldn’t have been more plain if she had etched her name upon the metal knob.

One deep breath, and his knuckles hit the wood.

He leaves all of his weapons at that door – fears, grudges, insecurities all clatter to the floor with hollow thuds, echoes of his knocking.  (He nailed enough knives, cutlasses, and hooks to his walls the moment Milah left him, and they have begun to come loose ever since he first saw her, but he needs clean walls for this.  For her.  For her, he needs no walls at all.)

He has found her/finds her/will find her.  She saved him, and now it is his turn to save her.  He faces this moment as a man of honor with a light heart.

The door opens, and she is so beautiful.

“ _Swan_.  At last.”


End file.
